Surprise Fifth City To Consider Leaving DART 

A fifth North Texas city, Addison, has announced it will also consider allowing its constituents to vote on immediately terminating its contract with the Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART). In a special meeting held on Dec. 2, the Addison City Council will decide whether to place a measure on the May ballot that would allow voters to decide the fate of the city’s membership with DART. 

So far, Farmers Branch, Highland Park, Irving and Plano have approved adding a similar measure to their spring special election ballots. All cities, including Addison, have been members of the system since its inception in the early ‘80s. 

The financial aspect of remaining within DART has been the main point of contention, with many of the cities that contribute hundreds of millions of dollars each year questioning the return on investment. As part of the deal, each member city funnels one cent of sales tax revenue to the transit system. Several legislative attempts to significantly reduce this contribution have failed, and now, some cities are exploring new ways to cut their costs. 

According to a report from the Dallas Morning News, member cities can allow their voters to opt out of DART every six years, with the next opportunity scheduled for 2026. 

Following the latest, and third consecutive, bill, each filed by Plano Rep. Matt Shaheen, to reduce the tax contribution, which failed in March, five mayors of member cities wrote directly to Gov. Greg Abbott, requesting that the issue be added to the agenda for a special session. Addison’s mayor, Bruce Arfsten, was not one of them, but now the city has joined the pack. 

Services would end immediately in cities that choose to dissolve their contracts. For Addison, this includes 12 bus routes, the termination of DART’s curbside on-demand service GoLink, and the decommissioning of Addison Station, the rail stop for the brand-new Silver Line that runs directly to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. 

Cities eyeing the exit have frequently cited a 2023 fiscal analysis from Ernst and Young, which reported that roughly half of the member cities were contributing more to DART than they received back in services. The report found that Addison had contributed $16.3 million, receiving $9.5 million in return for services. However, the report does not include any profit from the Silver Line, which all cities will continue to pay for until the $908 million loan taken to build the line is repaid, regardless of whether cities end their contracts or not. 

Concessionary Plans

Irving Mayor Rick Stopfer told the Observer that cities indicating their intention to leave were extended an opportunity for negotiation from the new DART Chair, Randall Bryant. Stopfer says the city of Plano was the first to respond and is currently negotiating with the transit service. They’re offering to extend their contract for another six years if they can maintain certain services, such as the rail line, while reducing or eliminating others, like standard bus routes. Stopfer says his city is working through its concessionary requests and that similar requests from other cities should not be unexpected in the coming weeks. 

“We’re still working on it,” Stopfer said. “We need to have council approval… what we’re working on will eventually come to the city council for us to evaluate before we send it to DART… I’m tired of arguing about it.”

Irving is one of the cities that had its services largely cut earlier this year as part of a rebudgeting plan aimed at appeasing angered cities. It is also one of the few cities that receives more in services than it contributes, but after the cutting of several bus routes, Stopfer worries it won’t remain that way for very long.